Editorial
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Apr 28, 2019; 11(4): 55-61
Published online Apr 28, 2019. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v11.i4.55
Imaging of the spine: Where do we stand?
Mohamed R Nouh
Mohamed R Nouh, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21521, Egypt
Author contributions: Mohamed R Nouh wrote the manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The author declares no conflictofinterest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Mohamed R Nouh, MD, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21521, Egypt. mragab73@yahoo.com
Telephone: +966-53-7476313
Received: September 4, 2018
Peer-review started: September 4, 2018
First decision: October 26, 2018
Revised: March 11, 2019
Accepted: March 16, 2019
Article in press: March 16, 2019
Published online: April 28, 2019
Abstract

The number of patients presenting with spine-related problems has globally increased, with an enormous growing demand for the use of medical imaging to address this problem. The last three decades witnessed great leaps for diagnostic imaging modalities, including those exploited for imaging the spine. These developments improved our diagnostic capabilities in different spinal pathologies, especially with multi-detector computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging, via both hardware and software improvisations. Nowadays, imaging may depict subtle spinal instability caused by various osseous and ligamentous failures, and could elucidate dynamic instabilities. Consequently, recent diagnostic modalities can discern clinically relevant spinal canal stenosis. Likewise, improvement in diagnostic imaging capabilities revolutionized our understanding of spinal degenerative diseases via quantitative biomarkers rather than mere subjective perspectives. Furthermore, prognostication of spinal cord injury has become feasible, and this is expected to be translated into better effective patient tailoring to management plans with better clinical outcomes. Meanwhile, our confidence in diagnosing spinal infections and assessing the different spinal instrumentation has greatly improved over the past few last decades. Overall, revolutions in diagnostic imaging over the past few decades have upgraded spinal imaging from simple subjective and qualitative indices into a more sophisticated yet precise era of objective metrics via deploying quantitative imaging biomarkers.

Keywords: Spine, Radiography, Multi-detector computed tomography, Magnetic resonance Imaging

Core tip: Advancements in diagnostic imaging over the last few decades have developed spinal imaging from simple subjective and qualitative indices into a more sophisticated yet precise era of objective metrics via deploying quantitative imaging biomarkers. These have revolutionized our understanding of the patho-physiological basis of a lot of spinal pathologies and spinal biomechanics that were not previously available. This is projected to improve patient care from both diagnostic and prognostic perspectives in the near future.